Israel and Morocco on Thursday signed an aviation agreement that will see direct flights launch between the two countries.

The development comes after Israel and Gulf states, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, signed similar cooperation agreements late last year.

The first direct commercial flight headed from Tel Aviv to Rabat took place in December, marking the normalization agreement between the two countries under which Washington also recognized Moroccan sovereignty over disputed Western Sahara.

Tickets for regular commercial flights, however, have yet to go on sale.

Bureaucratic delays have been compounded by the pandemic, which forced Morocco to mostly close its borders since March and impose a nationwide curfew in December.

Israel had established liaison offices in Morocco in the 1990s during a short-lived diplomatic opening.

But they closed again in the early 2000s as the second Palestinian intifada, which frequently targeted Israeli civilians in mass casualty suicide bombings, sparked a crushing response.